GJ Sevillano

GJ Sevillano (he/him/his) is a doctoral candidate in American Studies whose work is at the intersections of Asian American studies, critical food studies, and cultural theory. His dissertation titled, “Ang Sarap, Sarap! Filipinx American Culinary Imaginaries and Diasporic Gastropoetics,” examines cookbooks, recipes, menus, novels, and digital media to trace the sociohistorical and literary foundations of Filipino American foodways of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Through an examination of these alimentary materials, his interdisciplinary dissertation requires scholars rethink Filipino American foodways as a major site of debate around race, gender, class, sexuality, immigration, transnational labor, and empire. His research interests also include pop culture studies, cultural geography, and digital humanities. Having received a 2023-24 Dean’s Graduate Instructorship, GJ will be teaching “AMST 1000: Consuming Asian America” in Fall 2023.

His work can be found in Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies and is forthcoming in Verge: Studies in Global Asias (Fall 2023). He is currently working on several article-length papers including, one on queer commensality in Elaine Castillo’s 2018 novel America Is Not the Heart and another on the digital food landscapes of Jollibee’s global cult following.

His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council-Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program; The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; The Schlesinger Library at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute; the Association of the Study of Food and Society; and The George Washington University.

He currently serves as a Co-Editor of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies (GJFS) and a 2023 Bulosan Center Affiliate at the Carlos Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies at U.C. Davis. He was inducted into The George Washington University Chapter of The Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society in 2023. He previously served as the Doctoral Representative on the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council.

GJ obtained his M.A. in American Studies from George Washington University in 2021 and A.B. in Politics and certificate in American Studies from Princeton University in 2019. He is a former Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow (MMUF), an Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (IRT) associate, and an alumnus of the Leadership Alliance-Mellon Initiative (LAMI) program. He also received the 2019 Spirit of Princeton Award.